Kona Coast, 1968 film

I just watched this film, and it is terrible, and it is wonderful. Filmed on location in Honolulu and Kailua-Kona. It has so many out-of-this-world late-'60s aloha fashions and hair. It has a swinging tiki bar (without much in the way of any actual tiki), and a cruddy luau (which has one excellent Marquesan tiki).

I've shared an album of 44 screenshots from the movie on Facebook, take a look:
Kona Coast screenshots

The tiki bar wasn't just a set, as is often the case, but was a filmed in an actual oceanfront bar in Kailua-Kona. The theming could well have been added for the film, though. From looking at the spot on Google Street View, it looks like it's a vacant lot today. Anyone who is familiar with the history of Kailua's main drag able to weigh in?

I've always wanted to see this - expecting the best of the worst :)

"Her Name was Woman. Her other name was excitement. She belonged to Hawaii's Kona Coast, like the Surfriders and the Beachbums."

…you can't make that shit up! !

Sam "The Man" Moran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCim30-EaMg

LOVE! LIQUOR! …and LIES!

This is really a bad movie, full of late 1960s cheese & plenty of groovy Hawaiian localities

Fishing boat skipper (Richard Boone) goes looking for his missing daughter
whom was last seen at a wild drug party a few days earlier.

The director "Lamont Johnson" has a long list of TV shows & TV movies on his resume
but not many theatrical releases outside of "Kona Coast & Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone" and a couple of others,
I strongly believe this was a failed TV pilot or movie made for TV in it's original form
And retooled for a limited release in movie houses.

Richard Boone's character "Capt. Sam Moran" goes through most of the movie in shorts & high white socks
which look ridiculous on him, Think what an aging John Wayne dressed the same out for vengeance
would look like & you get my point, although this made a good drinking game (every time Boone shows up in shorts, take a drink)

Humuhumu,I think your terrible/wonderful assessment is pretty on. The story is a stinker but the location shooting is great of course and the 60s styling. The film title font and the poster/DVD cover design is evident of that cool style. The irony is, as a child, I thought I remember Richard Boone living in or hang out in Hawaii a lot. I remember him wearing great aloha shirts at that time. With his personal experiences here I thought he would do a better job in helping make the film. ATP you are right, it is a very TV-Movie quality production, which is not good. The DVD is available for purchase on Amazon and the Warner Bro. website. It's an archive film made to order DVD which I love that some studios do that service.

I'm glad the DVD cover didn't deviate from that cool style. This image unfortunately is the best thing of the movie

It is like watching a bad TV movie but the Hawaiian locations are great. I like it when they shout "Mai Tai" in the bar. Richard Boone lived on Oahu in the 60s. Hawaii Five -O was originally to be shot in California on a studio lot with some scenes shot in Hawaii. Allegedly Boone talked Leonard Freeman into shooting the series completely in the Islands. Freeman offered the role of Steve McGarrett to Boone but he turned it down. Kona Coast was originally filmed as a pilot for CBS which they passed on.